truths at gun point
by shortcurlytop99
Summary: This story takes place between Hunger and Lies: Lana is hiding out from Perdido Beach and hanging around feeling sorry for herself when Edilio comes in and GIVES HER HELL. Harsh truths are exchanged. Rated T for swearing.
1. Chapter 1

Night had fallen on Perdido beach, Lana's new home, or rather, her new prison. At least the Cliff top provided some sort of privacy from the prying kids. Of course, that didn't stop Sam and his people from coming to visit her. Lana would have been okay with it if it was for healing, but today Quinn had come to _talk_. Lana didn't want to talk, about anything, especially her feelings, which seemed to be Quinn's goal in coming to see her. That all went to hell when Lana pulled a gun on him. He left after that. And since then no one had come and visited Lana, unless someone was hurt.

Lana was sure she was losing her mind; the Gaiphage, the darkness. It was in her head, eating away at her sanity like it was food. She didn't know how long she was going to be able to take it. She had already been the puppet of the Gaiphage once, and that had horrific results. She had shot Edilio. An innocent, good person who did no one harm, and she shot him. That, along with the Gaiphage, also ate away at her. She hadn't seen Edilio since then.

It was only seven o'clock but the sky had already darkened the stars already on display for all to see. Lana was laying on her bed, feeling the guilt of what she did today wash over her. Poor Quinn, he only wanted to help. But he had to know, Lana was beyond help now. She had lost it for a second and was _this_ close to pulling the trigger; she _wanted_ to pull the trigger. And that, Lana was sure, was the scariest part of it all. Some people had tried to talk to her today, wanted her to come to town, someone was hurt, but Lana couldn't bring herself to do it. It was awful, but she was too preoccupied with wallowing in her own puddle of self misery to be bothered with anyone else. Lana was brought out of her dark thoughts by a violent knocking—no, banging, on the hotel room door. Lana chose to ignore it at first but after five minutes of the consistent disruption, Lana gave up and unlocked the door, keeping the chain on so she could peek out and see who it was.

Edilio Escobar was standing right in front of her, and he didn't look happy. Lana opened her mouth to say something, already unlatching the chain in effort to invite him in, but Edilio pushed past her and strode into the hotel room. Lana bit her lip; this wasn't good.

"So," Edilio began conversationally, but Lana could see the tension in the tight set of his shoulders, "a kid got a baseball bat to the legs today, by Zil, typically, and the kid must have broken something: he was in a lot of pain."

His mouth went wiry and his eyes were smoldering with suppressed anger, "so we called on the only healer in town. Funny thing? She didn't come. It was a pretty simple injury: fractured bones, nothing big, but yet she didn't show. You want to know something, Lana?" Edilio questioned with a bit of a savage smile that was starting to make her muscles tense. Lana didn't want to hear anymore but Edilio plowed on anyway.

"We thought: okay, just a broken leg, we'll get it set tomorrow so maybe then the Healer might show up. So we sent to kid to rest and wait. Turns out this kid, Kieran, was a developing mutant, a target for the human crew. They broke into his house about two hours ago and beat the kid to death; Kieran couldn't walk, so he couldn't get away. I had to bury him ten minutes ago. He was twelve years old."

Lana thought she was going to be sick. Patrick was watching the two of them from his perch on the bed. Edilio was breathing heavily, hands curled into fists. If she wasn't mistaken, she could see tears brewing in his eyes. He waited. After a moment, Lana managed to splutter out a miserable apology: "I'm so sorry, Edilio. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Edilio snorted in contempt and took a seat next to Patrick, "yeah? Well it did, Lana, which is why I'm here." His eyes met hers; Lana felt her stomach give a little flutter, a familiar feeling whenever Edilio looked at her.

"I saw Quinn today, ran out of here like hell was chasing him. What did you do?"

Lana felt hurt. Why was she suddenly the bad guy?

"Nothing," Lana crossed her arms across her chest, feeling the need to defend herself, "nothing happened."

"Other than you pulling a gun on him," Edilio added, narrowing his eyes.

"If you knew why did you ask?" Lana mumbled, flushing a dark red.

"I wanted to see if you would deny it."

Lana felt anger build inside of her; why was Edilio doing this? This wasn't fair.

"What do you want from me?" Lana snapped, causing Edilio to jump a little. "I can only be so many places at once, I can't heal everyone."

"What were you doing today?"

Damn.

"I can't take this anymore." Lana muttered, walking over to the dresser, trailing her fingers along the contours of it. "I've got to get out of this place."

"And go where, Lana? Back to the desert? Back to Gaiphage?"

Lana stared at him with wide eyes, "I'd never do that."

"You can't run away from everything." Edilio said, "we all have jobs to do, that's how this place is going to have to work. You can't just shirk responsibilities."

"I didn't ask for this, Edilio." Lana screamed, her volume upsetting Patrick and urging him to abandon the bed and go scouring for a place for cover.

"Newsflash; no one did," Edilio snarled, leaping off the bed and stepping close enough to send Lana reeling into the dresser.

"Yeah; you're a healer, you have a lot of pressure. I get that, _everyone _gets that. If you took a look around and got your head out of your ass maybe you could see people are trying to reach out to you. Only you're too stubborn and self centered to realize it."

Lana was shaking in shock and fury: Edilio never talked to her like this. In fact, she couldn't remember him talking like this to anyone, not even Sam. She must have really upset him.

"Look," Lana insisted between gritted teeth, "I'm sorry you had to bury the kid, alright?"

Edilio's mouth dropped open,

"You think… me burying…you think that's the reason I came over here?"

"Well, all you do is bitch about it. I assumed."

"Oh my God, you have to be kidding me."

Lana narrowed her eyes; pissed off enough as it was. A headache was building right behind her eyes, making her agitated.

"Get the hell out, Edilio." she shouted, skirting around him and swinging the door open; an invitation to leave.

"Make me,"

Lana couldn't believe he was being so stubborn. The gun was lying on top of the dresser; right where she left it. Quickly she grabbed it and pointed it straight at Edilio.

"Fine: is this forceful enough for you?" she whispered, finger trembling over the trigger.

For a moment Edilio was frozen in shock. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked her dead in the eye,

"Shoot me,"

"What?" Lana was thrown.

"You heard me, shoot me."

"Edilio…"

Edilio had moved so he was barley a foot away. His hand shot out and curled around hers, forcing the point of the gun against his chest, his heart.

"Come on, Lana, shoot me. Just pull the trigger, you've done it before. I'm sure it'll be easy."

This was insanely cruel. Lana begged Edilio with her eyes to stop tormenting her. For a few tense moments they just looked at each other; Lana didn't have a clue what he was thinking. All she could see in his eyes was rage, and something else she couldn't identify.

Finally Lana dropped the gun; the sound of metal against hardwood was the only noise in the room. To Lana, it sounded like the only noise in the world. For a few seconds Edilio was still holding her hand, then he let go like her touch burned him.

Lana stood rooted to the spot. Edilio backed off,

"Man up and do you're fucking job."

And with that Edilio stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Lana sunk to the ground. Patrick crept out from his hiding spot and sniffed the air cautiously before meekly coming to Lana's side. Lana put her arm around her dog and buried her face into the scruff of his neck. For the first time in what felt like a long time, Lana Arwen Lazar wept: she let the tears fall from her eyes and onto Patrick's fur and she let violent sobs rack her body. She messed up; not just with Quinn: she let that kid die because she was too pathetic to go out and help. And most of all; she failed Edilio, not once, but twice. After sniffing back more tears, Lana stood up. The time for crying had past; she had to do what Edilio said; man up and do her job. She walked out the hotel room with her held high and headed into town. She was hoping: hoping that she would win back not only the kids she had let down, but the boy who had stolen her heart. Who brought her back down from the pedestal that others had built for her. Lana took a deep breath. That's all you could do in the FAYZ, really: hope and pray it all doesn't go to shit.


	2. Chapter 2

The streets were dank and depressing. Piles of trash towered with heights similar to those of fire hydrants and kids were wandering around looking lost. Edilio stalked down the main street to the plaza, kicking the tin can that was in his way. He was too wired to go back to the firehouse; he needed some time to breathe, to think. Edilio was a naturally calm and optimistic person. Out of all the people in the FAYZ he had kept his cool, his morals. While most kids lost it or succumbed to sin, Edilio did not. However; the mounting pressure was starting to turn him into someone he wasn't. Anger that was never there before had been boiling over, dark thoughts raged inside his mind, looking for release. But he wouldn't let it. Not now and not ever. God had given him free will: he would not become like Cain, unaware of right and wrong altogether, or Drake, who was fully aware of right and wrong but chose wrong deliberately just because it pleased him.

While Edilio was caught in his brooding mood, he didn't notice he had almost collided with Howard, nose to nose. The other boy's eyes were wide as saucers with what every kid in the FAYZ had now become close and personal with: fear.

"Edilio, there's a fight."

"Who's fighting now?"

The expression on Howard's face tipped Edilio off.

"Howard, who's fighting?"

"Astrid and Sam."

"WHAT?"

Edilio followed Howard to the Plaza, where Barbra's daycare still stood. It _was_ Mary's place but, well, there was no Mary anymore so the daycare didn't feel quite right anymore to any of the prees or babysitting kids. Shaking off the cutting memory, Edilio stared at the foreign scene: there stood Sam and Astrid. In each other's faces, waving their arms wildly and shouting at each other. The younger kids watched, mouths open, thrown into some kind of catatonic state at seeing the mother and father of the FAYZ, the two who literally kept it together by a thread, coming close to breaking themselves: or, Edilio thought fearfully, breaking each other. Edilio gasped like everyone else when Astrid struck Sam with the back of her hand.

_Uh oh._

Edilio was nearly positive that Sam would never hit Astrid back, but his confidence waned as Sam in turn grabbed Astrid roughly by the wrist, dragging her dangerously close, while she screamed insults at him. What could have caused them to fight like this? Edilio thought, not sure if he should intervene. Howard was at his elbow and said anxiously,

"What should we do?"

"I'm not sure. We could let them work it out."

Howard's mouth twisted into a bitter smirk,

"yeah; that'll go down well."

Both of them flinched when they heard a sickening crunch and a bellow of pain. Sam was crouched over, clutching his nose, blood running through his fingers while Astrid stood in front of him, shaking out her hand. Edilio didn't wait this time to see if Sam was going to hit back (he looked like he really wanted to) he stepped in between them, keeping Astrid well away from Sam.

"Enough. Stop fighting." Edilio commanded, placing a hand on both their shoulders. As if Edilio wasn't there, Astrid reached out to strike Sam again; Sam effectively blocked the blow this time. Astrid was crying; tears streamed down her pretty face, causing the area around her eyes to become red and blotchy.

"Astrid, stop it." a different voice cried out. It was Lana; she came up behind hysterical Astrid and wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling her away. When Sam lunged for Astrid Edilio grabbed him and slammed him against the exterior brick wall of the day care. Sam might have had a good four inches and ten pounds on Edilio, but Edilio had enough pent up energy to even throw Sam around.

"Look, man, what the hell was that?" Edilio demanded, trying to get Sam to look at him. Blood covered his face. When he didn't answer, Edilio slapped him none too gently on the cheek,

"Hey; come on. What's going on?"

This time when Sam looked at him he was glaring.

"I've been hit enough times today, Edilio."

"I don't care about that, Sam. You two looked like you were going to rip each other apart."

"Accurate guess," Sam muttered blackly.

"Sam," Edilio warned. At Sam's far away gaze, Edilio shot a look at Astrid who was being comforted by Lana. Edilio resisted the urge to roll his eyes; he'd deal with her later.

"Everything's going wrong." Sam admitted. He looked like he was close to breaking down. Edilio released his grip and let Sam sink to the ground. After a moment; Edilio joined him.

"Sam, if you and Astrid fall apart; what does that say about the rest of us?"

"No pressure, huh?" Sam commented, leaning his head back until it touched the brick.

Edilio flushed an unhappy red,

"Sorry; what I meant was that you and Astrid are solid. Something pretty awful must be going on to make you guys to act like that."

Sam chuckled softly,

"It's just a FAYZ, Edilio."

"Ha ha. That joke is running thin."

"I'll remind Howard."

"Humph."

Sam turned his head so he was looking at Edilio. His gaze with filled with envy,

"Why do I always lose it all the time? I don't have the guts to be the leader and when I do step down I'm the dictator and want to take over. I wish I could be more like you…in control…moral and just."

Edilio cut Sam off,

"Hey, stop with the love letter already. We're focusing on you. Go up to Astrid and apologize."

Sam actually looked close to pouting,

"But she hit me; she started the whole thing."

"Sam. I may not know a lot about relationships; but I do know this. It is always the man's fault. So save us all the grief and trouble and just go and apologize."

Sam sighed and just when Edilio was sure he had to resort of violence to get him to move, Sam pushed himself off the wall and Edilio followed.

"Get Lana to fix your nose."

"Oh yeah; how could I forget?"

Lana was rubbing Astrid's shoulder in what Edilio assumed was a soothing way. She couldn't even meet his eyes.

"Hey Sam; need that nose fixed?"

"Yeah, later though. Can I talk to Astrid?"

Astrid looked up at Sam; her eyes were cold although Edilio could see the cracks beneath their icy surface.

"Fine," she said with a slightly hoarse voice. She got up from her kneeling position with Lana and stood up. Edilio watched as the two of them walked, quite a distance between them. But before they hit the other side of the street, they were touching hands. Lana was watching them, her eyes clouded. When she noticed Edilio watching she gave him a half hearted smile but let it fall when she saw he wasn't going to return it anytime soon.

"Can we talk?"

"I think we've done that already." Edilio replied, looking away from her.

"Don't try to play that with me. You know what I mean."

When Edilio didn't answer, Lana sighed and hauled herself up and walked away. Edilio pressed his lips together and then followed her. Lana stopped once they were under a tree, far away from the kids in the Plaza.

"So?" Edilio ventured, raising his eyebrows.

His attempt at trying to make her nervous didn't work. She was calm and was looking him in the eye;

"I'm sorry for not healing Kieran. For not doing my job, it was wrong."

"Glad you see that, you know, without needing the gun part. Can I go now?" Edilio turned away but Lana grabbed his arm and spun him back around.

"No, you can't. I wanted to let you know that I'm committed. That I won't run away from my responsibilities and that I want to help."

"Okay."

"That's all you have to say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I…"

"Do you want a gold star for doing what you're told?" Edilio questioned glaring at her with contempt. Lana took a step back, mystified at his sudden bout of brooding anger.

"No, I…." but she was interrupted yet again,

"No, what? A pat on the back for realizing how badly you messed up? Well, congrats."

"Why are you so mad at me?" Lana asked, exasperated.

"I'm not mad at you." Edilio said so softly that Lana strained to hear him.

"Then who or what are you mad at? Please; enlighten me."

Apparently Edilio didn't seem to want to enlighten Lana with any sort of information because he simply ignored her and walked away.

Lana stared at his back, slack jawed. This was how he was handling this?

"Way to take your own advice." Lana shouted at his back, knowing kids had heard and not caring. That seemed to slow his progress a bit.

"What?" he asked stopping but not turning around.

"Yeah, you heard me." Lana said. Striding up to him and making him face her. "All that shit about not running away; I'm sorry to say…actually I'm _not_ sorry to say that this totally qualifies at running away from your responsibilities."

"Since when are you my responsibility?" Edilio questioned, mouth pressed into a firm line.

"I'm not. This whole Godforsaken town is. Tell me why you're so pissed off."

"I don't need to tell you anything." Edilio snarled, taking step towards her. Lana stood her ground despite her pounding heart.

"Well, I doubt you're going to say anything to anyone. Stop being so damn saint like and feel a little."

Edilio narrowed his eyes,

"And that is supposed to mean what exactly?"

"It's okay to break down, okay? To have a crisis. No one can be in perfect control all the time."

Edilio actually looked slightly amused by this. His mouth tugged to the side; a parody of his regular smile.

"No, but I can try."

Lana felt like slamming her head against a brick wall; or preferably Edilio's. There was no getting through to this guy. Who knew that he could be so infuriating?

Seeming to think Lana was through with him; Edilio watched for a moment and then started to back away.

"Did you mean it? Back at the hotel? Do you want to die?" Lana calls out desperately.

"Of course not." Edilio says immediately. Lana raised her eyebrows,

"Really? Honestly?"

"You think I'm suicidal?"

"Everyone in the FAYZ is suicidal."

"Comforting thought."

"Answer my question. Did you want to die?"

At last Lana got found a chink in Edilio's defensive wall of anger and bitterness. Something in eyes seemed to break a little.

"I don't know…maybe. I wouldn't have been upset if you did shoot me. It would be a relief."

"A relief from what?" Lana asked breathlessly and, even though she probably knew the answer, she wanted to hear him say it.

"From _what_? From everything, Lana: from burying kids, from starvation, sickness, loneliness. Take your pick, there's a lot to choose from."

"You can't die, Edilio, you can't kill yourself." Lana took a deep breath, "you can't lose hope. I know I'm the last person ever to tell you this but you cannot give that up. We're already falling apart; we've lost so much. We can't lose hope as well."

Edilio ran his hands through his short hair, his dark eyes troubled and not seeming to absorb a word of what she was saying. Suddenly, Lana felt afraid. Afraid of Edilio's lack of response, afraid of what the FAYZ was doing to someone once so strong and could roll with the punches, and, Lana had to admit, afraid of she herself was doing to him; whatever savage darkness inside of her that was tearing him apart, though he pretended not to show it. So she blurted out the first thing that came to her head.

"Kiss me,"

"What?"

"Don't you want to?" Lana was surprised to note how much his answer meant to her.

"No, I don't." Edilio pronounced this as if it was obvious.

"You're lying."

"No, I'm telling you the truth. Sorry," his voice became expressionless, eyes distant.

"You_ want_ to kiss me. You just won't admit it." Lana accused, pushing the issue father than it needed to go.

"What are you? Twelve? No means _no_,"

He wasn't being honest and Lana knew it. She may not be the most perceptive person in the world, but she wasn't dense enough to not notice when a boy liked her or vain enough to claim he did when he didn't.

"What are you? Scared?" Lana countered meanly. When Edilio just glared blackly, Lana switched approaches.

Carefully she placed her hand on either side of his face but he jerked away from her touch, eyes promising a warning. Lana readjusted herself so she was only inches away from him.

"I'm going to ask you again. If you say no, I'll leave you alone. Kiss me."

By this point Lana was fairly confident that Edilio would flinch, tear out of her grasp and run the hell away. Instead, Edilio did what she asked; he kissed her.

The kiss itself was passionate but desperate at the same time. His lips moved against hers quickly, leaving Lana gasping for air. His arms encircled her waist, crushing her to him. Lana stumbled as he pushed her back into the nearest tree. The bark bit her, making her wince. Edilio was kissing her more fiercely now, grabbing her leg, hitching it onto his hip. This made Lana gasp a second time; although it wasn't for air.

All the while a voice in Lana's head screamed at her that this wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Lana locked her hands behind his neck and brought him closer, trying to prove the voice in her head wrong. With one hand, Edilio unlocked Lana's hands from his neck and pinned them above her head. Now her hands along with her back was having bark dig into them.

Edilio's mouth traveled away from her lips, along her jaw and down her neck. When he paused at the hollow of her throat and then pressed his mouth against it Lana, for a wild moment, thought he was going to bite. Instead he just kissed her. Lana couldn't ignore what was going on anymore. His movements and touch wasn't gentle and soft, not like Lana expected them to be. They were rushed, harsh and full of something darkly repressed. It didn't feel like Edilio; it felt like someone else, a stranger. When Lana cried out a little when the bark penetrated her skin and drew blood, Edilio pulled back a little. Still merely centimeters apart, Lana looked right at Edilio. Worry and concern filled her eyes along with the tears.

"Edilio, what's wrong with you?" she asked softly, not breaking eye contact.

"I don't know." This time he pulled away so that they were now a foot apart, no longer touching. The distance between them now was so far that Lana wondered how they had ever managed to talk to each other, never mind kiss.

"I don't know."

"I think you need to figure that out then." Lana said as coldly as she could manage. "Otherwise; we're not doing this."

"Don't you want to?" Edilio asked, mimicking her earlier words with a cruel tone.

"Not with you, not like this." Lana said, not wanting to give away how badly she was lying.

Edilio rolled his eyes, easily seeing past her lie. Abruptly, he seized her wrists, hard, and almost smothered her with his mouth. Lana fought down the growing burn low in her stomach. She wanted to let him continue, to see where he would bring this. Her blood was hot but she knew, despite the desire that raced through her veins, that it was not right. Love wasn't supposed to hurt like this.

"Enough. _Stop,_" Lana cried out, licking her now-puffy lips and rubbing her aching wrists. Not looking at him she said,

"Get whatever this is sorted out. Until then…stay away from me."

And with that Lana ran off; she didn't know where. This didn't go the way she planned. Lana didn't know what to do; Let Edilio figure it out by himself or help him? Lana didn't know what was going on with him, she didn't know if he was possessed, developing some sort of power that caused hormonal dysfunction or he was literally losing his mind. But she did know one thing; not even Lana's healing power could touch what was going on. _That_ she knew for certain. Lana could only heal bruises and cuts and broken bones. Damage on the soul, she couldn't do anything to heal that.


End file.
